


pack up, don’t stray (oh say say say)

by suzukiblu



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, Everyone Is Poly Because Avengers, F/F, F/M, Found Family, Fuck Yeah Female Alphas, Harems, M/M, Multi, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Pack Dynamics, Polyamory, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Relationship, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:47:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26930848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suzukiblu/pseuds/suzukiblu
Summary: Natasha is an alpha on a mission, and that mission is simple and clear.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Natasha Romanov, James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson, Natasha Romanov & Avengers Team, Natasha Romanov/Sam Wilson, Pepper Potts/Natasha Romanov, Steve Rogers/Natasha Romanov, and some side pairings that don't really show up enough to tag for
Comments: 23
Kudos: 310





	pack up, don’t stray (oh say say say)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ZepysGirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZepysGirl/gifts).



> Written for ZepysGirl, who wanted A/B/O Natasha getting a harem/found family. Loosely based on some old crack meta of mine, but only loosely.

“Steve,” Natasha says in the low alpha voice that omegas love, and Steve smiles at her. It’s not a happy smile, but his smile never is. 

“Sorry. I’ve got an alpha,” he says, and then he jumps out of the back of the plane and Natasha marks off yet another failed attempt. 

.

.

.

Natasha is an alpha on a mission, and that mission is simple and clear: she is going to make a pack, and she is going to take care of that pack. She’s almost got Pepper talked around, and if she gets Pepper she’ll obviously get Tony and Rhodey, and Bruce shouldn’t be too much harder than that. Thor’s an issue, admittedly, if only because he’s off-world so often. And, well, he’s a null, so she’s not really sure how to treat him sometimes. Plus she’s never even met Jane Foster, so that’s a kink in the plan too, but early surveillance is proving promising. 

At least Clint and Laura and the pups are firmly onboard. She’s got that. 

There’s no rush, though. Natasha spent a very long time not _wanting_ a pack and sure that she could never have one anyway, and she’s not going to deny herself one now that all these people who are perfect for it have all turned up at once. 

No matter how difficult Captain America wants to be about things. 

.

.

.

Steve doesn’t actually have an alpha, is the thing. 

He _did_ , a long time ago, but that was a long time ago. 

Natasha’s never spoken to Peggy Carter, but she knows everything about her. 

.

.

.

“You could’ve _called_ us, you realize,” Pepper says on the other end of the latest burner phone, and Natasha hums. Pepper’s an alpha—the only one Natasha’s ever considered for her pack—and a busy one. It’s hard to get ahold of her sometimes, even for Natasha. Since the helicarriers came down, though, Pepper’s called every night. Tonight she actually caught Natasha in the middle of something, which usually only happens when it’s an op. 

She needs to be a little less recognizable these days, though. 

Or a lot more, depending on how you look at it. 

“I suppose we could have,” Natasha muses, tugging lightly at her freshly cut and dyed and half-curled hair. Clint cut it. Laura dyed it. She’s doing the curling herself. Pepper sighs. “Are you free next weekend?” 

“What for?” 

“Well . . . we can figure that out, I figure.” 

.

.

.

Sam Wilson is mercifully, mercifully easy. Natasha doesn’t even need to figure out how to flirt with him; he’s won over by . . . she’s not actually sure, actually. One day he was an unfamiliar omega on the sidewalk and then he was a stranger making breakfast and now he’s looking at her like she hung the moon, which is . . . strange. They’ve barely even saved each other’s lives, comparatively. 

She and Clint had to do that a lot more times before they could look at each other anything like that. 

Natasha isn’t looking the gift horse of an easily-wooed omega in the mouth, though. Especially not when the gift horse is perfect Steve-bait on top of that. 

“Sam,” she says in that low voice that omegas love, and Sam Wilson gives her a wry smile. 

“Take me to dinner first, alpha,” he says, and it’s just that easy. 

Natasha’s not used to easy, but she could get there. 

.

.

.

“Steve,” Natasha says, and Steve gives her that not-happy smile again, and doesn’t say a word. 

.

.

.

Natasha opens her eyes. There’s someone in the safehouse. 

She draws the gun behind her headboard and slips out of the bed in silence. Sam sleeps through it, which is a testament to the perfection of that silence; Sam doesn’t sleep through _anything_. Sam sleeps through less than _Clint_ does, even with the hearing aids out, which is saying something, though of course Laura won’t wake up for anything less than an earthquake or a crying pup. 

Natasha wonders what Steve can’t sleep through, but of course she doesn’t know. 

She slinks down the hall, gun out, and finds a faint beta scent in the living room and a shadow sitting on the couch. 

_“I remember you,”_ the shadow says in cracked, stilted Russian. 

. . . oh, Natasha thinks, and is _almost_ stupid enough to lower the gun. But she’s not quite that stupid. 

_“Do you,”_ she says evenly, and the Winter Soldier turns his head to look at her. 

_“Yes,”_ he says, low and raw. _“You were in the room.”_

_“I’ve been in a lot of rooms,”_ Natasha says in the same even tone, although of course she knows exactly what room he’s talking about. She shifts her position just enough that the streetlights slanting in through the window illuminate the Winter Soldier’s face, and . . . 

And it’s not quite the Winter Soldier’s face, is it. 

_“I remember you,”_ he repeats, looking at her with strange, intense eyes. _“I wanted to belong to you, before.”_

Well, that’s a perfect trap if she’s ever heard one. 

.

.

.

“What the hell,” Sam says in the morning when he walks into the kitchen where Natasha’s sitting on one side of the table and the Winter Soldier’s on the other and all his weapons are abandoned on the coffee table in the living room and her gun is still in her hand, but not raised anymore. 

“Good morning, Sam,” Natasha says, giving him a pleasant smile. 

“Have you called Steve yet?” Sam asks. The Winter Soldier’s mouth tightens. 

“Not yet,” Natasha says. 

“Well, I guess I’m making extra breakfast,” Sam says with a sigh, then drops a kiss against her temple and takes the frying pan off the wall. 

Sam really is wonderfully easy, Natasha thinks. 

But really, despite all the difficulty, all of this is much, much easier than she’d ever thought it would be. 

That’s . . . interesting, she thinks. 

.

.

.

Steve shows up immediately, of course, and just as immediately stills in the doorway. The Winter Soldier—who might be Bucky Barnes—watches him alertly from the table. Neither of them says anything. 

“His memory’s spotty,” Natasha says, because she’s the alpha here, after all. She closes the door behind Steve. “Very spotty.” 

“Why did you come here?” Steve asks. The Winter Soldier’s eyes flicker. 

“There was a room,” he says abruptly. “Natalia was there.” 

Steve frowns. 

“‘Natalia’?” he repeats. 

“Like I said. Spotty,” Natasha says, because she really doesn’t want to get into all that right now. Or ever. 

“Sounds awfully spotty,” Sam says, raising an eyebrow. 

“Bucky,” Steve says, and the Winter Soldier keeps watching him. “Do you know me?” 

“No,” the Winter Soldier says. “But I think I’m supposed to.” 

.

.

.

Steve doesn’t stay, even with the Winter Soldier crashing on the couch. He never does, after all. 

Natasha really would have expected it this time, though. 

.

.

.

“ _Who’s_ on your couch?” Pepper says. Natasha can hear Tony rambling at someone in the background, and assumes it’s Rhodey from his tone. He’s less familiar with Bruce, and nowhere _near_ as familiar with anyone else. Could always be J.A.R.V.I.S., though. 

“It isn’t really my couch,” Natasha says. It’s just a safehouse. She’s got those; even ones SHIELD didn’t know about, which are the only ones she’s ever going near again. 

“Didn’t he try to kill you?” Pepper says. 

“A bit,” Natasha says with a dismissive shrug. That doesn’t make the Winter Soldier special. A lot of people have tried to kill her, up to and including Clint and Bruce—and nearly Laura, one _very_ memorable time early in their relationship. “Have you heard from Steve lately?” 

“When do we ever hear from Steve?” Pepper asks, wry and rueful. “The _world_ could burn down and we might not hear from Steve, as we’ve recently learned.” 

“Only if he thought it’d be an imposition,” Natasha says, and Pepper laughs resignedly. 

“Still trying to talk him around?” she asks. 

“You can safely assume I’ll be doing that until I’m dead,” Natasha says, and Pepper laughs again. It’s a nicer laugh this time, and Natasha feels a brief flash of triumph over it. 

“Maybe we’ll just call him,” Pepper says. 

“That’s a good start,” Natasha says. 

.

.

.

“You remember the Red Room?” Natasha asks when they’re completely alone in a brand-new safehouse and after she’s swept twice for bugs. 

“Yes,” the Winter Soldier says. She smiles wanly at him. 

“Too bad,” she says. “Of all the things to remember, you really lost the lottery there, Barnes.” 

“But you were there,” he says, and looks at her with an expression that all her expertise in human emotion really doesn’t know how to quantify. 

Probably because it’s directed at her, and not someone else. 

Definitely because of that, she thinks. 

.

.

.

“You seem kinda fixated,” Sam says. Natasha hums a noncommittal reply, making a show of pulling her stockings on. Sam is distracted, but not distracted enough to stop talking. “On Steve, I mean.” 

“Do I?” Natasha says. 

“The Winter Soldier is sleeping on your couch,” Sam says dryly. 

“That doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with Steve, you realize,” she says. 

“You haven’t really elaborated on what it _does_ have to do with, so no,” Sam says. Which is a fair point, really, so Natasha ignores the implied question to straighten up and put on her dress. It’s a lot to get into. Sam doesn’t need the dirty details. 

“Zip me up?” she asks, and he gets off the bed and does, and kisses the back of her neck. Again: easy. 

She’s not actually sure what to do with easy, sometimes. 

“Have a good time,” Sam says as he steps back from her. “Don’t kill anyone Steve wouldn’t kill.” 

“Really?” Natasha says, looking over her shoulder at him, mouth quirking in amusement. “Steve would kill a lot of the people who are going to be at this party.” 

“I stand by my previous statement.” 

She laughs. 

It’s . . . easy. 

Hm. 

.

.

.

Natasha’s not sure when Sam started sleeping around her, come to think of it, though she remembers exactly when she decided _he_ was safe enough to sleep around. Or doze, at least. The Winter Soldier seems fine with being functionally unconscious in her presence—he’s been sleeping since he came in. Considering the shape he showed up in, Natasha doesn’t blame him. As long as he wakes up long enough to eat and take the occasional shower, she’s not going to interrupt. 

He never sleeps when Steve’s around, though. 

Natasha doesn’t think Steve’s ever so much as dozed around her, unless someone counts the aftermath of New York and the bone-deep exhaustion that’d been overtaking him at the time. But he’d stayed more alert than she’d expected, even then, and she wonders how well he actually sleeps. Sam seems to think the answer is “not very”, and since Sam still occasionally wakes up in the night and goes for a weapon that isn’t there, Natasha expects he’s speaking from experience. 

Really, she thinks the only one who’s sleeping well these days is the Winter Soldier, and in his case it’s probably less “sleep” and more his body and brain literally shutting down in an attempt to recover from seventy-odd years of abuse. 

It seems likely, at least. 

.

.

.

The Winter Soldier wakes up and walks into the kitchen. Natasha sips her coffee and watches him, waiting. It’s what she does every time he wakes up. 

He looks around. He doesn’t try to kill her. 

“There’s food in the fridge,” she says. He never eats without being prompted. 

The Winter Soldier just stands there. Natasha raises an eyebrow at him and catalogues all the potential weapons in the room, and how many she can get to versus how many he can. The knife block’s empty, but it’s heavy. The cast-iron frying pan is on the wall. There’s a knife taped under the kitchen counter and two guns behind the refrigerator, and who knows which of those the Winter Soldier knows about. She hasn’t been able to watch him 24/7, best attempts aside. 

“Natalia,” he says after a long moment, and then steps forward and goes to his knees in front of her, baring his throat without preamble. 

Natasha . . . blinks. She tilts her head. He just kneels there, tension strung through him like a wire. 

She sets aside her coffee. 

.

.

.

“He smells like yours now,” Steve says in the hall, after the next time he and the Winter Soldier have completely failed to talk to each other. Natasha hums. 

“Does he?” she says. 

Steve doesn’t smell like anyone’s. 

.

.

.

Natasha calls Pepper and sends Clint and Laura an email, and sends the pups postcards from cities she’s not currently in. She curls her cut-and-dyed hair. She lets Sam sleep in—well, not _her_ bed, but the same bed that she is. She lets the Winter Soldier sleep on the couch. She lets Steve keep coming by as often as he wants, and lets him leave without saying anything about just how much more often she suspects that “wants” should actually be. 

She does a lot of things a good alpha would do, and waits to see what’s going to happen. 

.

.

.

“Move over,” Sam says, and sits down on the couch next to the half-asleep Winter Soldier, who just grunts at him and buries his face deeper in the cushions. “Or not, sure.” 

_“Fuck off,”_ the Winter Soldier mutters. 

“I know enough Russian to know what that means,” Sam says. “Although your accent sucks, man. I thought you lived there?” 

“I thought you slept in the bedroom,” the Winter Soldier snipes. 

“I do, but the TV is out here and our idiot buddy’s holding a press conference without backup,” Sam says, setting his lunch down on the coffee table. “Also, it’s like, _noon_. Please get a normal-person sleep schedule already.” 

“My sleep schedule is _fine_ ,” the Winter Soldier grumbles, wrapping his arms around a throw pillow. Then he lifts his head with a frown and looks at Sam. “Wait, he’s what?” 

“Press conference. No backup,” Sam repeats. “It’s gonna be a slaughterhouse. Of reporters, obviously, but still. You want one of these sandwiches?” 

“. . . maybe.” 

“Then move the fuck over already.” 

The Winter Soldier moves. Sam takes over exactly one third of the couch and leaves exactly one third open. Natasha won’t be sitting there, and she’s fairly certain he already knows that, but she appreciates the gesture. She’s watching them from the kitchen with her coffee in hand, feeling very _alpha_. 

Sam turns on the TV. The Winter Soldier frowns at it. 

“Fuck, these things are huge,” he says. 

“You should see my parents’,” Sam says, flipping through the channels. “It’s ridiculous.” 

Natasha thinks about going over and standing behind the couch and putting a hand on the back of both their necks. They’d let her, she’s sure, which doesn’t make her want to do it any less. Just more, in fact. 

A news anchor appears on the television screen, talking about Steve and the helicarriers and several other things the Avengers may or may not be responsible for. Natasha sips her coffee, and keeps watching Sam and the Soldier. They’re the interesting thing right now. 

Bucky, perhaps, she should start thinking of him as, though that’d be awfully dangerous to do. 

Well. Natasha does a lot of dangerous things. 

The anchor says something else, and the camera switches to another reporter. Natasha glances briefly at the time. The press conference should start any minute now. If she’d known Steve was doing it sooner, she would’ve been there and checking the security, but of course it never occurs to him that they’d do that kind of thing for him. They’d only found out about it because Tony’d called to complain at them about it ten minutes ago. 

The camera switches again, and Steve walks out and stands in front of the microphones. Sam and . . . Bucky both tense, and Natasha sets down her coffee and walks over to the back of the couch after all, standing behind them. She puts a hand on the back of both their necks, and they don’t quite relax, but they soften. The fact that Steve’s standing up there alone, smelling stray . . . well. She doesn’t like that either. 

And not just for the obvious reasons. 

.

.

.

The press conference is short. Steve doesn’t get shot, mercifully, though it’s probably not security’s competence that arranged that and more the fact it wasn’t exactly a well-publicized appearance. 

He says some things. The reporters ask some questions. He answers some of them. The particulars don’t matter. It’s all very clear, after all: Captain America is who he is, and he’s going to do the right thing. 

And good luck to anyone who wants to stop him. 

.

.

.

Sam goes to bed. Bucky goes with him, to Natasha’s mild surprise. She probably should’ve expected it after this afternoon, though. 

She stays up late, waiting. 

Steve doesn’t come, but when does he ever? 

.

.

.

“Steve,” Natasha says, not in her alpha voice or with any particular tone at all. Steve glances over at her. She wonders why he ever comes around. She wonders why he ever leaves. 

“Do you prefer Natalia?” he asks. 

“No,” she says. “Barnes can call me that, though.” 

Not anybody else, of course. But him. 

“Tony wants us in New York,” Steve says. 

“Tony’s always wanted us in New York,” Natasha says, resting her chin in her hand and watching him from underneath her lashes. Tony’s wanted them in New York since the Chitauri, in fact. Natasha would’ve been fine with that, personally, but when push had come to shove she’d picked following Steve to DC. The others, they’d had each other, or at least _someone_. Steve’s had . . . Steve, and very little else. 

Despite her best efforts. 

“He offered again,” Steve says. “Said it’d be safer for us.” 

“That’s probably true,” Natasha says. Even her best safehouses don’t have J.A.R.V.I.S., much less the Hulk. Tony has both. 

“Are you willing to go?” Steve says. He’s thinking about Bucky, of course. 

“Depends,” Natasha says with an easy shrug. “Are you coming?” 

“I don’t know,” Steve says. Natasha wants to reach out and take his hand, but that’d be a foolish thing to do. 

“You should figure that out,” she says instead, arching an eyebrow at him. 

Steve doesn’t say anything. He just sits there on the other side of the safehouse’s kitchen table while Sam and Bucky probably aren’t actually sleeping in the bedroom and Natasha waits for him to come up with an answer. She thinks he already knows what he wants, but that doesn’t mean that’s what he’s going to do. It’s Steve, after all. 

She wants to just tell him she’s going wherever he does, but she doesn’t think he’d really understand what she means by that. 

He hasn’t so far, at least. 

She can wait, though. She’s waited this long, after all. 

“Steve,” she says finally—not in her alpha voice—and Steve smiles faintly at her. It’s not a happy smile, of course. 

“There might still be a few heads of HYDRA out there,” he says. Natasha tilts her head. 

“And you don’t think the rest of us would be interested in hunting those down?” she asks lightly. 

“I don’t think you should have to,” Steve says, and of course he’s thinking of Bucky again. Natasha supposes she would be too, in his situation. Right now, though, she’s in _her_ situation, and the only person she’s thinking about is Steve. 

Someone has to be. 

“We’re pack,” she says. “We do that kind of thing for each other.” 

“We’re not,” Steve says, because he’s a sad, lonely person who’s forgotten how to be anything different. Natasha feels that foolish urge to touch him again, but can’t imagine he’d appreciate it. 

“That’s your decision, I suppose,” she says, folding her arms on the table to keep her hands off him. “But just so you know, you’re the only one thinking that way.” 

“It’s just . . . not like that,” he says. 

“Stark didn’t invite us to come and _live_ with him because he doesn’t want to burn down HYDRA with us,” Natasha says dryly. “And Wilson and Barnes aren’t in this apartment because the decor here’s so nice.” 

Steve doesn’t say anything, again. Natasha watches him. 

He’s so obvious, sometimes. 

He’s so hard to understand, sometimes. 

But she can wait.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr!](http://suzukiblu.tumblr.com/)


End file.
